Bursting on to the scene in 2016 with his gutter scrapingly, gun-finger inducingly good jump up, Simula quickly made a name for himself, releasing on the most prominent labels from that area of the spectrum. Biological Beats, Low Down Deep and Playaz all welcomed him to the ranks giving us beasts like ‘Introvert’, ‘Ravioli’ and ‘The Light’ which he co-produced with mate Annix.
The years continued and we start to hear Simula progress his sound with drawing influence from the depths d&b has to offer. Starting his own label with Annix allowed him space to nurture his sound resulting in tracks such as ‘Blood Worm’ and ‘Angels’. With so many certified bangers to his name, it seems unfathomable that this is Simula’s debut album. As a body of work ‘Dogma’ clearly showcases Simula’s evolution as a drum and bass artist. Revered in the works of jump up, minimal and tech Simula’s crossover appeal is expertly excicuted in this LP.
We catch up with Simula about the current state of his metal health, his sofa dwelling work process, and the ever changing evolution of perception of jump up and its morphing perception. In this chat Simula revealed some considered, articulate and an extremely interesting answers. Have a read, then pre-oder Dogma here.
I always like to start by asking how you are doing.
I’m really well. Thank you. I’m better than ever.
Good, why So well?
I feel like I’m at a point in my career where I’m really doing what I want to be doing and I’m really enjoying it. I’m able to do it as a full-time job which I feel very fortunate to be able to do. It’s been a bit of a tough journey, really. Obviously lockdown was very hard for a lot of artists including me, it was very difficult because I had a lot of issues with my mental health. I didn’t know how to handle it. But it was kind of a blessing in a way that it gave me the time to really kind of explore myself and get to know myself, and through doing that it’s improved my career immensely. I’m making music that I really enjoy making. I’m working harder than ever and it’s just great. I feel like I’ve come a long way.
That’s really, really nice to hear. Speaking about mental health, the last tie you spoke to us. You were promoting the single ‘Angels’ which was to raise money for the charity Mind. Were you happy with the response that you got?
I was so happy with the response. I had loads of messages from artists who I looked up to who had never really supported my music before saying “wow this track is amazing”. I just wanted to tie that in with mental health. The name of the track angels comes from the concept of that feeling of having your wings clipped and not being able to metaphorically like fly and just enjoy life to the fullest. I just wanted a way of expressing that through my music because, at the end of the day, music is the ultimate form of expression. It’s how I’ve come to terms with a lot of things in my life. It helps me get through hard moments. I get loads of messages from people saying “thank you for speaking about mental health” and “your music has really helped me through hard times” and that’s just an amazing feeling to be honest.
How did it feel like when you gave the donation over when you raised all that money?
Well, I’m still giving money, I haven’t stopped. It’s 10% of everything I earn on that single. I wanted to do something that was realistic- it’s my full-time job at the same time. It’s still making money. People are still buying it, people are still streaming it. I’m still giving money to mind. I don’t want to be misconstrued as virtue signaling or anything like that. I don’t want to put it out there too much. Like I’m donating this, I’m donating that. I just, I do it for me, I do it for other people and I don’t flaunt it really. I did it through a release because I knew that that is the best way for me to reach people and get money and help people. I know a lot of people could relate to the plight I had there.
Even if people don’t know you’re donating it’s an amazing way to build awareness…
Yeah, definitely. It also helped to build up my confidence to speak out more about my mental health. I went on to do a seminar for What’s On Your Mind with Turno. That was nerve-wracking but it was such a good feeling to speak to a room full of people, being completely transparent about what I’ve been through. The response afterwards was amazing and it really inspired me to be a bit more open. It’s a really good feeling.
Do you think that openness contributed to you feeling the best you’ve ever felt?
Definitely. I one hundred percent believe that being transparent about your feelings and your mental health and just putting it out there is so empowering. I know it’s very difficult for people to get to that point. It was a long journey for me, but it’s really given me this new breath of fresh air in my life. I just feel better than ever, to be honest. I think this is part of the reason why I went on to do an album because I thought, I’m finally ready to make a statement piece.
I’m really happy for you… and I’ll come back to the album a little bit later. Again the last time you spoke to us you spoke about the government, almost abandoning, the creative industries, especially nightlife, for me it’s so it was amazing to come back and everyone’s just on it. How do you think the scenes recovered?
I think the scene has recovered. It’s certainly different from how it used to be, but it’s really exciting at the moment. I think a lot of people are trying to do things in a new and exciting way. I’m seeing a lot of people doing 360 Boiler Room style sets. I think that for artists, having that time away from the scene allowed everyone to take a breather and just focus on music, focus on their identity, what they’re going to do in the scene and the kind of events they’re gonna put on. I think that in the long term, it was very good for everyone. The scene is still recovering somewhat. It is tricky, I personally had a lot more work before the lockdown, and I know a lot of people can say the same, but I’m happy with how it’s going at the moment. It’s showing a healthy recovery.
In terms of the government helping out? I don’t think they care. I don’t think a conservative government really understands the value of the music industry, not just economically, but to the well-being of people in general. Music is an escape for a lot of people and I believe that needs to be something that the government cares about. And unfortunately, we just didn’t see that during lockdown.
I agree, it really ties in with the mental health stuff as well. All of the arts are a relief, they’re a way for people to express how they feel and heal each other. And it’s sad that there isn’t much value placed on it by the UK government.
I don’t think a lot of people from the government could really relate to people that liked dance and electronic music and just rave culture because that’s not the background. They’re from, they don’t understand it. That’s not how they unwind at the end of the day. So you could say, we were ignorant expecting them to help us, but, it’s nice to see the scene recovering.
I wanted to take you back a bit and talk about your beginning, the beginning of you and the beginning of your career in music. I want to know how you discovered drum & bass.
I remember the exact first time I discovered drum and bass. I was at a friend’s house party. I was 14 years old. Young age, sneaking out of the house with a bit of alcohol- life was really exciting. I remember my friend had a big speaker in her house and someone had put on the DJ Fresh track DJ- All That Jazz, which came out on V, I think it came out on V and I was just like’ Whoa, this is sick!” I think what drew me in was the drums. I’d never heard a genre with such fast intricate drums before, and then just having that deep greasy bass underneath it. It was repetitive, but in a good way and it was exciting. And I thought, wow, this is so cool, I remember going to school and would be sitting in lessons just finger drumming.
From there, I started listening to it, the next thing I discovered was Liquicity around the time that Netsky dropped his first album. ‘I Refuse’ instantly became one of my all-time go-to’s, it’s just amazing. I love the soulful vibe, the rolling drums and the energy behind it. Having the sort of the slower bassline, but with the fast drums having them all poly rhythmically working together, I thought it was so cool and different from a lot of music I’d heard before.
As I was growing up my dad was a big influence. He played the guitar for about 30 years and I think that’s what started my musical journey. He used to have a keyboard that he got out when we were young, he’d get up all the effects and play with them. He listened to a lot of rock, indie rock and new metal. I grew up listening to Sum 41, System Of A Down, Green Day, things like that. So when I first heard drum and bass, it was really exciting, it really opened up this world of electronic music to me.
So you were 14 when you got into it, when did you start thinking, I can do this, I can start making music?
I guess not long after that. I had a mate at school who liked to make hip hop beats and he came round day and I remember clearly he got my laptop, went on to the fl studio website and downloaded the demo. And he was like ‘Right… we’re gonna make some music and I remember him showing me how to create drum arrangements and then he went off home later. I stayed up all night making little drum loops, slowly unintentionally became this hobby that I got sucked into and I’m not gonna lie, I became absolutely obsessed with it. Even to the point where I would give my mates excuses as to why we couldn’t hang out. So I could go home and make music. I absolutely loved it.
I didn’t necessarily want to be a big artist, but to be an artist that people respected.I wanted people to listen to my music and think ‘wow, that’s awesome’. I’ve learned a lot over the last few years, I’ve been doing music full time for about seven years now and I don’t have the same kind of goals as I used to. I’ve learned a lot about the industry, but what got me into it was just really wanting to kind of kind of be the best, I guess. I’m not going to claim that I’m the best, but I wanted to kind of prove to myself that I could do it and I could really make something of this.
That’s a good reason to get into something…
Another thing as well as I wanted to stand out, I wanted to bring something new to the table. I didn’t look at other artists and think I want to be like them. I thought, I like what they do, but I want to do my own spin on it and like my own sound. And I feel now that I’m finally at a point where I have my own sound and I can really show it to the world. I think this is why I’m at the point where I’ve done an album to be honest. It’s a statement piece for my signature sound.
Before we talk about your sound as a whole, I wanted to go back to your first releases which for me, really sit in the jump up realm. I’ve always been a massive jump up fan. I feel like in recent years the perception of jump up has changed. I wanted to know your thoughts on that…
I think we’re at a point now where people take jump up a lot more seriously, you’ve got huge artists like Hedex and Bou who sell out huge events. They have hundreds of thousands of followers and up. It’s the point now where people are really accepting that jump up, makes money in the industry and people like it. Personally, I don’t like a lot of jump up, I’ve always been the kind of person where it doesn’t matter about the sub genre. I just like what I like.
Jump up really appealed to me around between 2015 and 2017. There was just all this really grotty stuff that was really simple, angry, bass face, music that had this really dark edge to it. You don’t hear as much of it as you used to, but that is really what influenced me to take a direction with my sound- more towards the technical side, kind of meeting in the middle. It was a very deliberate move for me, to be taken a bit more seriously. I love the technical side of drum and bass. My favorite labels are 1985, Critical, stuff like that, they’re not known as jump up labels- I knew that I could stand out if I combined the jump up sound with that technical sound, to me it was just a natural progression, it was more mature. I think a lot of jump up falls a bit short when it comes to maturity. It’s very carefree- which I love about it but at the same time, I did want it to be taken a bit more seriously.
So you intentionally combined the simplicity of jump up with complex sound design?
Yes, it was intentional. I always strive to be better and one thing I really thought I could improve on was my mix downs and my mastering and the technical side. I wanted to take my jump up down a bit more of a serious route and see how people would respond to it. It’s good to see that people like the sound, ‘Cold Shoulder’ was a good example of this. It’s the kind of track that you could play in a minimal set and you could also play in a jump up set. And that’s what I always wanted to do, just meet in the middle.
It makes it a lot more interesting as well because, exactly as you said you’ve got the maturity, but then you’ve got that kind of screw up your face, going mad vibe…
Well at the end of the day, it’s music and music is there to be enjoyed, so have fun with it. Not everything has to be really serious. I’m not so into the cheesy tracks but I still have fun. Music is subjective but I guess for me I’ve just always liked that dark, grotty stuff. It really resonates with me. I can’t explain why and I don’t feel like I need to explain why really.
I don’t mind kind of saying that some stuff isn’t so much for me because I like to kind of have my own room. I said music is subjective and I think people need to be a bit more accepting sometimes. I don’t think it’s necessarily hating on someone by saying ‘that’s not for me or this is not for me’. I think it’s good to kind of have a vision of where you want music to go or what kind of drum and bass you like.
So you’re releasing your album on your own imprint Neksus, talk to me about self releasing.
I started the label with Annix in 2020, because we really saw a gap in the market for a new kind of sound that was just a hybrid between jump up. I think over time we’ve actually kind of moved away from that little bit. Annix has moved towards the more melodic technical stuff which he really enjoys, which is very popular in Europe. And I’ve just kind of taken that sort of more dark minimal route and just tried to add a bit of a jump up flavor to it. Because we both have our different directions there’s this huge space in between us to explore different styles of music.
It’s what we wanted to do with the label. I’ve never really enjoyed working with labels. I find it’s really difficult to send a big batch of tunes and not hear back from people for ages. You don’t know what they’re thinking, you don’t know they like them, or if they don’t want them. That’s just the reality of the industry, to be honest. I want to have full control over the artwork, the branding, and the way it’s promoted. I’m really happy that I decided to start a label, because it’s really rewarding work. When you have full control over it.
The label is making a statement, we’re trying to push a specific sound. It’s been, it’s been fun. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, it’s hard work but it’s very rewarding work, which is good.
This is your debut album, why did you think the time was right now?
I’ve had the idea of doing an album for a good few years now. It’s a very personal journey and it was one of those things where I thought I’d just know when I was ready. I had the idea of doing it before lockdown, which was a big struggle for me with my mental health so I decided to take some time, make some music, work on myself and then we’ll see how it goes. As we came out of locked down and everything started building up again I was playing a lot of music I’ve made to see how people respond to it. I slowly put out more music changing my imagery and my branding finally I got to the point where I was happy with how it was. I needed a statement piece. So I thought , let’s do an album.I like the idea of being a perfectionist but I’m definitely not. I got to a point where I just had to draw the line.
What is your statement?
It’s purely stylistic. It’s to do with kind of moving, jump up towards the dark minimal side which. There have been tracks in the past that kind of fit that like DJ Hazard’s time tripping for example but I just really wanted to make a much bigger deal of it.. I wanted people to really notice it as a style and start making more of it. I want to inspire others to do it as well.
I definitely didn’t do it all at once. It was just slowly building up and there’s a lot of tracks on the album that I’ve released over the last two years for me. I wanted it to just be a collection of the best music. I put out, not necessarily the best performing music, but just stuff that I really enjoyed making.
Is your studio at home?
I live in a flat by myself, the parents live nearby, I used to live at home. I used to have my studio in my bedroom. My dad had an office at the end of the garden when I moved out and he asked if I’d like to rent the studio from him? It’s its own building, great for being a studio. It’s nice to go down there and work because it’s a proper big room. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t go there as much as I would like to. I’m the kind of guy that can just sit on my sofa with my MacBook, on my lap and produce tunes like that. I’m more than happy to do that. The studio has always been the place where I go to finish stuff off, but I vow to get in there more. I’m very jealous of producers that can spend every day there. I just don’t have to focus to do it, but everyone’s different. Everyone’s got a different way of working, I’ve collab with so many artists that work similar to me like Particle for example. But other producers like Annix or K-Motions are in the studio every single day.
So do you not have a little routine? You’ll just grab a cup of tea and sit on the sofa…
For me, it’s just when I feel like doing it, writer’s block is a common problem. When I have that feeling of ‘I need to get on my computer and make music’. I just go and do it. I’m very impulsive like that, but it tends to produce great results. So I can’t really argue with it. I try to keep a good routine though. When I started I’d stay up till 4 am every night and go to school the next day and I’d be absolutely exhausted. I could have done better in my studies, but nowadays, I try to have a bit more of a healthy routine. I try not to do it late at night.
Where do your ideas come from, do they just hit you when you’re in the shower?
A Bit of advice that was always useful to me I got from K Motions was to always go out and listen to music, listen to different music and constantly search for new things and new ideas, because you never know what’s going to inspire you. Another thing for me, as well, is going out and just having a walk in nature. There’s a lot of common land around me, I go for a walk in the woods and just clear my head and ideas will just come to me.
But my advice would be to never force it, you’ve got to enjoy the process because success is the journey. It’s not the destination.
What you got coming up next?
I’m going to take a break for a while. I’m gonna hide away and make loads of new music because I haven’t got much new music. I need to get back in the studio and make some more. So I think I’m gonna have a break.
You’re not playing out either ?
I will be playing out but I’ll just be spending most of my week in the studio, cracking on with music, that’s important sometimes. Taking that time to just really focus on nailing down and getting a lot of tracks finished. I’m terrible at finishing tracks. I start thousands of ideas and they stay as four bar loops forever, and I can never finish them. I have to really write down the tracks that I’m happy with to finish them. At the moment, I’ve got a list of about 20 tracks, which I’m happy about. I want to start branching out of my musical style as well, start doing more 140, maybe even venturing into garage.I want to have fun with it. I love a lot of different styles of music, not just drum and bass. Drum and bass has always been the one that pays the bills. Nowadays people are playing different music in their sets, I’ve started playing a lot of 140 in my sets and people like it.
I love a set with a bit of everything, it’s just so fun and so interesting.
Definitely. Dubstep has always been something that I’ve loved just as much as drum and bass. I was in that generation in school where everyone started listening to Skrillex, over time my taste in Dubstep matured. I started listening to more of the original stuff, like Big Apple Records Deep Medi I just have such a love for that sound. It’s angry sounds, dirty sounds that I like, dubstep and drum and bass just fully encompasses that.
What shows have you got coming up?
I’ve got my album launch at Lakota on April 21st, I’m really excited about it. I curated the lineup, which I feel like really stands out. We’ve got everything from Skantia B2B Bassatripper, which is a world first. We’ve got people like Cesco, who releases on 1985, we’ve got Spectral B2B SMG and we’ve got super secret special guests as well, which I can’t talk about unfortunately but it’s a big one.
Sounds sick, are you from Bristol?
I’m from Guilford, but I absolutely love Bristol. I love playing in the UK, to be honest. There’s something about the UK, it has a cool vibe about it, it’s my favorite country to play in. I’d say one of my other favorite places to play is New Zealand, it’s just absolutely amazing out there.I think it’s what’s relatable to me growing up, listening to drum and bass in school and having friends who listen to it. It’s just that UK sound, the wobbly bass, the rolling drums and the jungle influence which encompasses a whole range of different subgenres and I love that.
Is there anything you want to make sure you get out there?
I guess if I was going to say anything of value in this interview it’s that if someone is struggling with their mental health try talking to someone. Reach out because it’s really important and you shouldn’t feel like you’re less of a person for going through struggles. It’s important that you help yourself and that you do something about it because the world is an unforgiving place and it can be cruel. Everyone deserves to be happy.
Follow Simula: Instagram/Soundcloud/Neksus Sound Website
